Ever seen a lost goat? When a goat thinks it is lost, it runs around in a panic, screaming madly for the herd. I've seen goats step around the barn, lose line of sight on the other goats, and run around like this for fifteen minutes before figuring out the herd is only a few feet away. The herd ignores the panicked goat entirely, unless the lost goat is young enough for its mama to care. As a lost goat, where better to find other goats than on the seemingly endless plain of the blogosphere?

A smart government would realize that, no matter where the line is drawn, there is going to be a drop in stock prices once the market (e.g., people who buy and sell stocks, either for themselves or for other people) realizes that the government won't bail out every company in the world that wraps itself in an American flag and stamps "God Bless the USA" on its ass. Therefore, now is the time to draw the line, pull back from the earlier bailout mistakes as best as possible, and wait for the market to stabilize itself. As a bonus, nobody over there has to get re-elected for another two years, so the October urgency to "do anything that looks like I am doing something to the guys at home" is gone.

Have you looked at who we have on the hill lately? My guess is that we can expect a lot of our money to get funneled to big corporations for the foreseeable future. But I really, really, hope that I am wrong.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I sent letters to all my congresspeople last time bailouts were proposed, to no particular avail. Now I am going to do it again - Hope triumphs over experience!

The Campaign for Liberty people sent some suggested letters to your senators, one for Republicans and one for Democrats. I modded them up a bit for sending off. Here in Louisiana, we've got one of each, and they both voted against the original bailout. I thought they should get some props for that, so I included that in my letters.

First, I would like to thank you for your opposition to the $700 billion bailout package in October.I deeply appreciated that you voted against using taxpayer dollars to prop up poorly run financial institutions.Unfortunately, however, it appears that Congress is contemplating throwing more of our good money after bad management.

I am writing you today to urge you to oppose any bailout of the auto industry, whether by taking existing funds from TARP, revising any previous loans, or making new grants.

The auto industry is lobbying hard for taxpayer money when they should be entirely focused on restructuring their companies and figuring out how to make a profit.

There is no guarantee that a government handout will have any positive effect. Since a bailout will only delay the economic consequences of the Big 3's current predicaments, Congress should allow the market to work so that the fallout can be dealt with and overcome as quickly as possible.

I suggest that you work to:

1.) Curb regulation: The auto industry is already one of the most heavily-regulated industries, and a bailout will bring more government regulation and additional costs. Alleviating even a little of the red tape would free up resources for them to address their financial situations, save jobs, and produce quality products to jump-start sales.

2.) Cut taxes: Cutting corporate and capital gains taxes would give these companies immediate funds to put toward their problems. Cutting individual income taxes would return much needed money to workers and consumers, strengthening their financial positions and purchasing power during these turbulent times.

Additionally, because the Paulson TARP plan has abandoned its originally stated purpose of buying toxic assets, is not holding up its promises to be transparent, and has not been properly accountable to Congress, no further expenditures should be authorized until the Treasury Department presents a full accounting to Congress of how it has already dispersed TARP funds.

Since the election, Republicans have talked of returning to their limited government message. This is a chance for you to prove your commitment to free market capitalism and the freedom philosophy by demonstrating that the Republican Party will be worthy of our trust in the next Congress. A vote for another bailout will send the signal that, despite any lip-service paid to limited government principles, Republican talking points of defending them are cheap and little more than campaign rhetoric.

The answers to our economic problems cannot be found in further government intervention. As your constituent, I urge you not to put my tax dollars on the line and to vote "no" on the auto industry bailout.

First, I would like to thank you for your opposition to the $700 billion bailout package in October.I deeply appreciated that you voted against using taxpayer dollars to prop up poorly run financial institutions.Unfortunately, however, it appears that Congress is contemplating throwing more of our good money after bad management.

I am writing you today to urge you to oppose any bailout of the auto industry, whether by taking existing funds from TARP, revising any previous loans, or making new grants.

The auto industry is lobbying hard for taxpayer money when they should be entirely focused on restructuring their companies and figuring out how to make a profit. There is no guarantee that a government handout will have any positive effect, and that GM, Ford, and Chrysler will not be back in a few months asking for additional billions.

Since a bailout will only delay the economic consequences of the Big 3's current predicaments, Congress should allow the market to work so that the fallout can be dealt with and overcome as quickly as possible.

Instead of handing out more of the taxpayers' money and moving further away from the free market ideas that made America great, I ask you to:

1.) Curb regulation: The auto industry is already one of the most heavily-regulated industries, and a bailout will bring more government regulation and additional costs. Alleviating even a little of the red tape would free up resources for them to address their financial situations, save jobs, and produce quality products to jumpstart sales.

2.) Cut taxes: Cutting corporate and capital gains taxes would give these companies immediate funds to put toward their problems. Cutting individual income taxes would return much needed money to workers and consumers, strengthening their financial positions and purchasing power during these turbulent times.

Taking just these two steps will save the industry far more in the long run than the numbers currently being proposed for the bailout.

Additionally, because the Paulson TARP plan has abandoned its originally stated purpose of buying toxic assets, is not holding up its promises to be transparent, and has not been properly accountable to Congress, no further expenditures should be authorized until the Treasury Department presents a full accounting to Congress of how it has already dispersed TARP funds.

The answers to our economic problems cannot be found in further government intervention. As your constituent, I urge you not to put my tax dollars on the line and to vote "no" on the auto industry bailout.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Well, it has been a while. But, basically, right now, all my weeks are pretty close to this one:

Monday - build fence. This includes pounding T-posts into the ground by hand. Come home dead tired, eat dinner, and sleep.Tuesday - I don't even remember what I did. Too tired I guess.Wednesday - More fence building.Thursday - go to weight watcher's meeting. Lose 1.8 lbs (yay) . Get an ashiatsu (sp) massage. Yourmasseuse does this with her feet, which might be a little kinky, if you didn't have my masseuse. Be too tired to go see Shakespeare in the park, even though it is free, and pass out at 9 pm.Today - hand seed 3 acres in clover. This entails walking around in the sun for hours. cranking a handle on a machine from Taiwan designed for a person a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than me. Then build more fence.Tomorrow - finishing the darned fence (hopefully). Having a meeting with the Louisiana goat co-op in which a bunch of yammerheads and government employees talk for a long time and I space out. Moving the cows which have gotten into the wrong herd into the correct herds so that we can put the bull in with one of the herds.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

I am off to the First Womens Wilderness Adventure sponsored by the NRA. Should be a blast, but will not have any internet access until I get back. I plan to write about it, and maybe even get a few pictures, and post all when I get back.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Daily Advertiser, the local paper in Lafayette, Louisiana, is running a story entitled Supplies to Reach Storm's Victims. Basically, FEMA "lost" $85 million in supplies, then gave them away as surplus. It appears that out local senator was outraged that these supplies were diverted away from those that they were intended for, and got the recipients to return the supplies, which are now going to be distributed to storm victims. (And were trucked back to Louisiana, wasting more gas and money).

The supplies in question are described as including "baby bottles, cookware and hygiene kits." These are supplies that you need the week after a storm. Katrina was in August 2005 and Rita was September of the same year. I think we're a little beyond hygiene kits now.

What I really can't understand, if you assume that the government had to get involved in the first place, is why they are handing them out now. Hurricane season is here; there will be another one somewhere in this country or another where people can actually use this stuff. But, knowing the feds, there is no way that they can simply divert supplies from where they are surplus to where they are needed.

Apparently, according to this review (and not in any of the previews I saw), there are people in WALL-E. Corpulent, complacent people run by the man, who, in this case, is represented by a large corporation. The Mises reviewer takes issue with the idea that humans could exist for seven hundred years without any innovation whatsoever. He also takes issue with the idea that the salvation of the human race is a return to subsistence farming. But his big problem is the use of the movie as a vehicle to feed children "environmentalist, anticapitalist, and antitechnological propaganda."

If he's right, and it's that blatant, I probably am not going to enjoy it much. The farm I work on is a grass finished beef and grass fed goat operation; we're concerned about the ethical and ecological implications of our current mainstream meat operations. But I'm a Libertarian-leaning Republican who used to have a day job in the legal field, so I am pretty tired of brainless "capitalism is bad, the State must save us from ourselves before global warming destroys us all!" ideology. I don't think I want to pay my hard-earned dollars just to get angry at the screen. Maybe this is one to get from the Library after all.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Today we had three kids come to visit the farm. Their grandmother is a friend of my mother's, and their mother went to school with me, so there's no way to say no. But, in fact, my mother loves taking kids on tours of her farm, so she'd totally have said yes even if she didn't know them from Adam.

The children in question are 6, 4, and 3. Their mother was two grades younger than me, which makes me feel a bit odd. My husband and I haven't even decided if we're having any, and she's already got three. They have been living in a large southern city, in a condo. They are not country kids. The four year old is afraid of bugs, for instance.

So we ride out on the Kubota to the barn to see the cats. We are very excited by the cats, which we refer to as "she" regardless of genitalia. I fail to point out the difference, too busy trying to make sure that the three year old does not try to jump out of the hayloft.

Mom asks me to get some of the goats. I manage to get just my most feed-addicted goats to come to the barn. They are pretty calm, and one of them has our newest kid, so I figure it will be a match made in heaven. I fail to anticipate three simultaneous, shrill, squeals of delight, which make my goats suddenly realise that they are *gasp* away from the heard. They run back to the heard, bleating as they go. So much for that.

It's back on the Kubota, out to the cows. We are out of range cubes, which means we are "treating" them with goat feed. Cows are slobbery animals to being with, and the tiny goat pellets mean that prodigious amounts of slobber are generated. We have our two most docile cows on one side, eating out of our hands. The two older boys cower on the back of the Kubota. As their mother and grandmother attempt to coax them to come feed the cows, or at least to pet them, the three year old charges off the seat smack in the direction of our craziest cow. Fortunately, Mom diverts her to a cow that is not insane and probably won't kick her from pure spite. Eventually, the cows have been sufficiently gawked at, and we head for the goats.

In the heard, the goats are anything but shy. In fact, my second billy, Jim, is so feed-greedy that I am a bit worried that he will bowl the kids over, so I don't let any of them hold the bucket. The four year old is interested in feeding the goats from his hands, while his mother and grandmother take copious pictures. He continues to refer to them as deer, despite multiple corrections. I finally figure out that it is because my nannies' horns look a bit like those of does. If you have never actually seen a deer, that is. Of course, as soon as we turn our backs, the farm dog bites the three year old. Happily, no skin is broken, and her mother is way less upset than expected. She stops crying before Mom and I stop scolding the dog. You can tell that she is going to be a firecracker when she gets a bit older.

Later, I will once again try to convince my mother that the farm dog is dangerous and should be locked up when people are around. He's bitten ME for goodness sake (and gotten his butt whooped for it good), and I am generally acknowledged by all the sane dogs I know to be dominant. I am not sure how many people that dog will bite before she gets the message, but she persists in believing that he is not dangerous. In vain I plead that one serious bite will require that he be put down, and thus we ought not tempt him. She loves this dog the way Pairs Hilton loves her little rat dog, and he can do no wrong in her eyes.

For now, though, it is off to the porch to eat watermelon. Copious amounts of watermelon are eaten, and copious amounts of juice are dribbled on the front porch. The adults watch the melee with glasses of the 2004 Pesquera in hand. The farm dog is locked up for the duration. The three year old plays alternately in the dirt and in the dog's water bowl, no doubt seriously fortifying her immune system over the long term.

Eventually, it is time for dinner, and they load themselves into the van and drive away, hot and grubby but waving happily. I am not sure how their mother does it - I only had them around for three hours, and I am already ready for my nap.